Publications

Displaying 1 - 100 of 245
  • Ameka, F. K. (2001). Ideophones and the nature of the adjective word class in Ewe. In F. K. E. Voeltz, & C. Kilian-Hatz (Eds.), Ideophones (pp. 25-48). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2007). Grammatical borrowing in Likpe (Sɛkpɛlé). In Y. Matras, & J. Sakel (Eds.), Grammatical borrowing in cross-linguistic perspective (pp. 107-122). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2001). Ewe. In J. Garry, & C. Rubino (Eds.), Facts about the world’s languages: An encyclopedia of the world's major languages past and present (pp. 207-213). New York: H.W. Wilson Press.
  • Ameka, F. K., & Wilkins, D. (1996). Semantics. In H. Goebl, P. H. Nelde, Z. Stary, & W. Wölck (Eds.), Contact linguistics: An international handbook of contemporary research. Volume 1 (pp. 130-137). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Ameka, F. K. (2013). Possessive constructions in Likpe (Sɛkpɛlé). In A. Aikhenvald, & R. Dixon (Eds.), Possession and ownership: A crosslinguistic typology (pp. 224-242). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Baayen, R. H. (2007). Storage and computation in the mental lexicon. In G. Jarema, & G. Libben (Eds.), The mental lexicon: Core perspectives (pp. 81-104). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2013). Impersonal verbs. In G. K. Giannakis (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics Online (pp. 197-198). Leiden: Brill. doi:10.1163/2214-448X_eagll_SIM_00000481.

    Abstract

    Impersonal verbs in Greek ‒ as in the other Indo-European languages ‒ exclusively feature 3rd person singular finite forms and convey one of three types of meaning: (a) meteorological conditions; (b) emotional and physical state/experience; (c) modality. In Greek, impersonal verbs predominantly convey meteorological conditions and modality.

    Impersonal verbs in Greek, as in the other Indo-European languages, exclusively feature 3rd person singular finite forms and convey one of three types of me…

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  • Bauer, B. L. M. (2007). The definite article in Indo-European: Emergence of a new grammatical category? In E. Stark, E. Leiss, & W. Abraham (Eds.), Nominal determination: Typology, context constraints, and historical emergence (pp. 103-139). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Bauer, B. L. M. (1996). The verb in indirect speech in Old French. In T. Janssen, & W. Van der Wurff (Eds.), Reported Speech (pp. 75-96). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Motionland films version 2: Referential communication task with motionland stimulus. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 97-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874623.

    Abstract

    How do languages express ideas of movement, and how do they package different components of moving, such as manner and path? This task supports detailed investigation of motion descriptions. The specific study goals are: (a) the coding of “via” grounds (i.e., ground objects which the figure moves along, over, around, through, past, etc.); (b) the coding of direction changes; (c) the spontaneous segmentation of complex motion scenarios; and (d) the gestural representation of motion paths. The stimulus set is 5 simple 3D animations (7-17 seconds long) that show a ball rolling through a landscape. The task is a director-matcher task for two participants. The director describes the path of the ball in each clip to the matcher, who is asked to trace the path with a pen in a 2D picture.

    Additional information

    2001_Motionland_films_v2.zip
  • Bohnemeyer, J., Eisenbeiss, S., & Narasimhan, B. (2001). Event triads. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 100-114). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874630.

    Abstract

    Judgments we make about how similar or different events are to each other can reveal the features we find useful in classifying the world. This task is designed to investigate how speakers of different languages classify events, and to examine how linguistic and gestural encoding relates to non-linguistic classification. Specifically, the task investigates whether speakers judge two events to be similar on the basis of (a) the path versus manner of motion, (b) sub-events versus larger complex events, (c) participant identity versus event identity, and (d) different participant roles. In the task, participants are asked to make similarity judgments concerning sets of 2D animation clips.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). A questionnaire on event integration. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 177-184). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
  • Bohnemeyer, J., Bowerman, M., & Brown, P. (2001). Cut and break clips. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 90-96). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874626.

    Abstract

    How do different languages treat a particular semantic domain? It has already been established that languages have widely varied words for talking about “cutting” and “breaking” things: for example, English has a very general verb break, but K’iche’ Maya has many different ‘break’ verbs that are used for different kinds of objects (e.g., brittle, flexible, long). The aim of this task is to map out cross-linguistic lexicalisation patterns in the cutting/breaking domain. The stimuli comprise 61 short video clips that show one or two actors breaking various objects (sticks, carrots, pieces of cloth or string, etc.) using various instruments (a knife, a hammer, an axe, their hands, etc.), or situations in which various kinds of objects break spontaneously. The clips are used to elicit descriptions of actors’ actions and the state changes that the objects undergo.

    Additional information

    2001_Cut_and_break_clips.zip
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1998). Temporale Relatoren im Hispano-Yukatekischen Sprachkontakt. In A. Koechert, & T. Stolz (Eds.), Convergencia e Individualidad - Las lenguas Mayas entre hispanización e indigenismo (pp. 195-241). Hannover, Germany: Verlag für Ethnologie.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (1998). Sententiale Topics im Yukatekischen. In Z. Dietmar (Ed.), Deskriptive Grammatik und allgemeiner Sprachvergleich (pp. 55-85). Tübingen, Germany: Max-Niemeyer-Verlag.
  • Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Toponym questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 55-61). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874620.

    Abstract

    Place-names (toponyms) are at the intersection of spatial language, culture, and cognition. This questionnaire prepares the researcher to answer three overarching questions: how to formally identify place-names in the research language (i.e. according to morphological and syntactic criteria); what places place-names are employed to refer to (e.g. human settlements, landscape sites); and how places are semantically construed for this purpose. The questionnaire can in principle be answered using an existing database. However, additional elicitation with language consultants is recommended.
  • Boroditsky, L., Gaby, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Time in space. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field manual volume 10 (pp. 59-80). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468721.

    Abstract

    This Field Manual entry has been superceded by the 2008 version: https://doi.org/10.17617/2.492932

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  • Bosker, H. R. (2013). Juncture (prosodic). In G. Khan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (pp. 432-434). Leiden: Brill.

    Abstract

    Prosodic juncture concerns the compartmentalization and partitioning of syntactic entities in spoken discourse by means of prosody. It has been argued that the Intonation Unit, defined by internal criteria and prosodic boundary phenomena (e.g., final lengthening, pitch reset, pauses), encapsulates the basic structural unit of spoken Modern Hebrew.
  • Bosker, H. R. (2013). Sibilant consonants. In G. Khan (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Hebrew Language and Linguistics (pp. 557-561). Leiden: Brill.

    Abstract

    Fricative consonants in Hebrew can be divided into bgdkpt and sibilants (ז, ס, צ, שׁ, שׂ). Hebrew sibilants have been argued to stem from Proto-Semitic affricates, laterals, interdentals and /s/. In standard Israeli Hebrew the sibilants are pronounced as [s] (ס and שׂ), [ʃ] (שׁ), [z] (ז), [ʦ] (צ).
  • Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2007). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition [Reprint]. In V. Evans, B. K. Bergen, & J. Zinken (Eds.), The cognitive linguistic reader (pp. 849-879). London: Equinox Publishing.

    Abstract

    Reprinted from Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. (2003). Space under construction: Language-specific spatial categorization in first language acquisition. In D. Gentner & S. Goldin-Meadow (Eds.), Language in Mind (pp. 387-427). Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (2007). Containment, support, and beyond: Constructing topological spatial categories in first language acquisition. In M. Aurnague, M. Hickmann, & L. Vieu (Eds.), The categorization of spatial entities in language and cognition (pp. 177-203). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    Among children’s earliest spatial words are topological forms like ‘in’ and ‘on’. Although these forms name spatial relationships, they also presuppose a classification of ground objects into entities such as “containers” and “surfaces”; hence their relevance for a volume on “spatial entities”. Traditionally, researchers have assumed that semantic categories of space are universal, reflecting a human way of nonlinguistically perceiving and cognizing space. But, as this chapter discusses, spatial categories in fact differ strikingly across languages, and children begin to home in on language-specific classifications extremely early, before age two. Learners do not, it seems, draw only on purely nonlinguistic spatial concepts; they can also actively construct spatial categories on the basis of the linguistic input. Evidence is drawn primarily from research on children learning Korean vs. English.
  • Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2007). Kształtowanie znaczeń dla języka: Zjawiska uniwersalne i charakterystyczne dla danego języka w przyswajaniu kategorii semantycznych odnoszących się do przestrzeni [Reprint]. In B. Bokus, & G. W. Shugar (Eds.), Psychologia języka dziecka (pp. 386-424). Gdansk: Wydawnictwo Psychologiczne.

    Abstract

    Reprinted from: Bowerman, M. & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language specific in the acquisition of spatial semantic categories. In M. Bowerman & S.L. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 475-511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (1996). Learning how to structure space for language: A crosslinguistic perspective. In P. Bloom, M. A. Peterson, L. Nadel, & M. F. Garrett (Eds.), Language and space (pp. 385-436). Cambridge, MA: MIT press.
  • Bowerman, M., & Choi, S. (2001). Shaping meanings for language: Universal and language-specific in the acquisition of semantic categories. In M. Bowerman, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 475-511). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Bowerman, M. (1996). The origins of children's spatial semantic categories: Cognitive vs. linguistic determinants. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 145-176). Cambridge University Press.
  • Bresnan, J., Cueni, A., Nikitina, T., & Baayen, R. H. (2007). Predicting the dative alternation. In G. Bouma, I. Kraemer, & J. Zwarts (Eds.), Cognitive foundations of interpretation (pp. 69-94). Amsterdam: KNAW.

    Abstract

    Theoretical linguists have traditionally relied on linguistic intuitions such as grammaticality judgments for their data. But the massive growth of computer-readable texts and recordings, the availability of cheaper, more powerful computers and software, and the development of new probabilistic models for language have now made the spontaneous use of language in natural settings a rich and easily accessible alternative source of data. Surprisingly, many linguists believe that such ‘usage data’ are irrelevant to the theory of grammar. Four problems are repeatedly brought up in the critiques of usage data— 1. correlated factors seeming to support reductive theories, 2. pooled data invalidating grammatical inference, 3. syntactic choices reducing to lexical biases, and 4. cross-corpus differences undermining corpus studies. Presenting a case study of work on the English dative alternation, we show first,that linguistic intuitions of grammaticality are deeply flawed and seriously underestimate the space of grammatical possibility, and second, that the four problems in the critique of usage data are empirical issues that can be resolved by using modern statistical theory and modelling strategies widely used in other fields. The new models allow linguistic theory to solve more difficult problems than it has in the past, and to build convergent projects with psychology, computer science, and allied fields of cognitive science.
  • Brown, P. (2007). Principles of person reference in Tzeltal conversation. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (Eds.), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 172-202). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    This paper focuses on ‘minimality’ in initial references to persons in the Mayan language Tzeltal, spoken in southern Mexico. Inspection of initial person-referring expressions in 25 Tzeltal videotaped conversations reveals that, in this language, if speaker and/or recipient are related through ‘kinship’ to the referent, a kin term (or other relational term like ‘namesake’) is the default option for initial reference to persons. Additionally, further specification via names and/or geographical location (of home base) is also often used to home in on the referent (e.g. ‘your-cousin Alonzo’, ‘our mother’s brother behind the mountain’). And often (~ 70 cases in the data examined) initial references to persons combine more than one referring expression, for example: ‘this old man my brother-in-law old man Antonio here in the pines’, or ‘the father of that brother-in-law of yours the father-in-law of your elder-sister Xmaruch’. Seen in the light of Schegloff’s (1979, 1996) two basic preferences for referring to persons in conversation: (i.) for a recognitional form and (ii.) for a minimal form, these Tzeltal person-referring expressions seem to be relatively elaborated. This paper examines the sequential contexts where such combinations appear, and proposes a third preference operative in Tzeltal (and possibly in other kinship-term-based systems) for associating the referent as closely as possible to the participants.
  • Brown, P. (1998). Early Tzeltal verbs: Argument structure and argument representation. In E. Clark (Ed.), Proceedings of the 29th Annual Stanford Child Language Research Forum (pp. 129-140). Stanford: CSLI Publications.

    Abstract

    The surge of research activity focussing on children's acquisition of verbs (e.g., Tomasello and Merriman 1996) addresses some fundamental questions: Just how variable across languages, and across individual children, is the process of verb learning? How specific are arguments to particular verbs in early child language? How does the grammatical category 'Verb' develop? The position of Universal Grammar, that a verb category is early, contrasts with that of Tomasello (1992), Pine and Lieven and their colleagues (1996, in press), and many others, that children develop a verb category slowly, gradually building up subcategorizations of verbs around pragmatic, syntactic, and semantic properties of the language they are exposed to. On this latter view, one would expect the language which the child is learning, the cultural milieu and the nature of the interactions in which the child is engaged, to influence the process of acquiring verb argument structures. This paper explores these issues by examining the development of argument representation in the Mayan language Tzeltal, in both its lexical and verbal cross-referencing forms, and analyzing the semantic and pragmatic factors influencing the form argument representation takes. Certain facts about Tzeltal (the ergative/ absolutive marking, the semantic specificity of transitive and positional verbs) are proposed to affect the representation of arguments. The first 500 multimorpheme combinations of 3 children (aged between 1;8 and 2;4) are examined. It is argued that there is no evidence of semantically light 'pathbreaking' verbs (Ninio 1996) leading the way into word combinations. There is early productivity of cross-referencing affixes marking A, S, and O arguments (although there are systematic omissions). The paper assesses the respective contributions of three kinds of factors to these results - structural (regular morphology), semantic (verb specificity) and pragmatic (the nature of Tzeltal conversational interaction).
  • Brown, P. (2007). Culture-specific influences on semantic development Acquiring the Tzeltal 'benefactive' construction. In B. Pfeiler (Ed.), Learning indigenous languages: Child language acquisition in Mesoamerica (pp. 119-154). Mouton de Gruyter: Berlin.

    Abstract

    Three-place predicates are an important locus for examining how children acquire argument structure and how this process is influenced by the typology of the language they are learning as well as by culturally-specific semantic categories. From a typological perspective, there is reason to expect children to have some trouble expressing three-participant events, given the considerable variation across languages in how these are linguistically coded. Verbs of transfer (‘give’, ‘receive’, etc.) are often considered to be the verbs which canonically appear with three arguments (e.g., Slobin 1985, Gleitman 1990). Yet in the Mayan language Tzeltal, verbs other than transfer verbs appear routinely in the ditransitive construction. Although the three participants are rarely all overtly expressed as NPs, this construction ensures that the ‘recipient’ or or ‘affectee’ participant is overtly marked on the verb. Tzeltal children’s early acquisition of this construction (well before the age of 3;0) shows that they are sensitive to its abstract constructional meaning of ‘affected’ third participant: they do not go initially for ‘transfer’ meanings but are attuned to benefactive or malefactive uses despite the predominance of the verb ‘give’ in the input with this construction. This poses a challenge to acquisition theories (Goldberg 2001, Ninio 1999) that see construction meaning arising from the meaning of the verb most frequently used in a construction.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (2007). Gesichtsbedrohende Akte [reprint: Face-threatening acts, 1987]. In S. K. Herrmann, S. Kraemer, & H. Kuch (Eds.), Verletzende Worte: Die Grammatik sprachlicher Missachtung (pp. 59-88). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.

    Abstract

    This article is a reprint of parts of chapters 2 and 3 from Brown and Levinson (1987) discussing the concept of 'Face Threatening Acts'.
  • Brown, P. (2013). La estructura conversacional y la adquisición del lenguaje: El papel de la repetición en el habla de los adultos y niños tzeltales. In L. de León Pasquel (Ed.), Nuevos senderos en el studio de la adquisición de lenguas mesoamericanas: Estructura, narrativa y socialización (pp. 35-82). Mexico: CIESAS-UNAM.

    Abstract

    This is a translation of the Brown 1998 article in Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 'Conversational structure and language acquisition: The role of repetition in Tzeltal adult and child speech'.

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  • Brown, P. (2001). Learning to talk about motion UP and DOWN in Tzeltal: Is there a language-specific bias for verb learning? In M. Bowerman, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (pp. 512-543). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    The spatial vocabulary of the Mayan language Tzeltal is dominated by an Absolute system of spatial reckoning, whereby an "uphill/downhill" coordinate abstracted from the lay of the land is used to reckon spatial relationships on the horizontal in both small-scale and long distance space. This system is used in lieu of a Front/Back/Left/Right system which does not exist in this language. The spatial vocabulary dedicated to this system (which I refer to in general as the UP/DOWN vocabulary) includes intransitive motion verbs (roughly translatable as "ascend"/"descend"), their transitivized counterparts ("make it ascend/descend"), directional adverbs ("uphillwards"/"downhillwards"), and possessed relational nouns ("uphill/downhill in relation to it"). This same vocabulary applies to spatial relations on the vertical axis. Two seemingly contradictory observations about children's early meanings for the spatial verbs dedicated to this system motivate the proposal put forward in this paper. On the one hand, Tzeltal children's UP/DOWN vocabulary shows very early sensitivity to the semantic structure of the language they are learning: the meanings for these verbs are from the first usages attached to the slope of the land, and to particular places; there is no evidence of an initial preference for the vertical meaning. On the other hand, children's meanings remain for a long time too specific, and errors of interpretation/production (using the verbs to mean 'local slope of land' rather than 'overall N/S slope of land direction) are evident in verbal productions of some children as late as age 7 or 8. The proposal is made that the highly specific nature of Tzeltal verbs at the basic level influences the children's hypotheses about what kinds of meanings verbs can have.
  • Brown, P. (1998). How and why are women more polite: Some evidence from a Mayan community. In J. Coates (Ed.), Language and gender (pp. 81-99). Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Brown, C. M., Hagoort, P., & Swaab, T. Y. (1996). Neurophysiological evidence for a temporal disorganization in aphasic patients with comprehension deficits. In W. Widdig, I. Ohlendorff, T. A. Pollow, & J. Malin (Eds.), Aphasiatherapie im Wandel (pp. 89-122). Freiburg: Hochschul Verlag.
  • Brown, P. (2001). Repetition. In K. Duranti (Ed.), Key terms in language and culture (pp. 219-222). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Abstract

    This is a reprint of the Brown 1999 article.
  • Brown, P., Pfeiler, B., de León, L., & Pye, C. (2013). The acquisition of agreement in four Mayan languages. In E. Bavin, & S. Stoll (Eds.), The acquisition of ergativity (pp. 271-306). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    This paper presents results of a comparative project documenting the development of verbal agreement inflections in children learning four different Mayan languages: K’iche’, Tzeltal, Tzotzil, and Yukatek. These languages have similar inflectional paradigms: they have a generally agglutinative morphology, with transitive verbs obligatorily marked with separate cross-referencing inflections for the two core arguments (‘ergative’ and ‘absolutive’). Verbs are also inflected for aspect and mood, and they carry a ‘status suffix’ which generally marks verb transitivity and mood. At a more detailed level, the four languages differ strikingly in the realization of cross-reference marking. For each language, we examined longitudinal language production data from two children at around 2;0, 2;6, 3;0, and 3;6 years of age. We relate differences in the acquisition patterns of verbal morphology in the languages to 1) the placement of affixes, 2) phonological and prosodic prominence, 3) language-specific constraints on the various forms of the affixes, and 4) consistent vs. split ergativity, and conclude that prosodic salience accounts provide th ebest explanation for the acquisition patterns in these four languages.

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  • Brown, P. (2001). Politeness and language. In N. Smelser, & P. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 11620-11624). Oxford: Elsevier Sciences.

    Abstract

    This is an encyclopedia entry surveying research and theoretical approaches to politeness phenomena in language usage.
  • Brown, P., & Levinson, S. C. (1998). Politeness, introduction to the reissue: A review of recent work. In A. Kasher (Ed.), Pragmatics: Vol. 6 Grammar, psychology and sociology (pp. 488-554). London: Routledge.

    Abstract

    This article is a reprint of chapter 1, the introduction to Brown and Levinson, 1987, Politeness: Some universals in language usage (Cambridge University Press).
  • Carota, F. (2007). Collaborative use of contrastive markers Contextual and co-textual implications. In A. Fetzer (Ed.), Context and Appropriateness: Micro meets macro (pp. 235-260). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    The study presented in this paper examines the context-dependence and
    dialogue functions of the contrastive markers of Italian ma (but),
    invece (instead), mentre (while) and per (nevertheless) within
    task-oriented dialogues.
    Corpus data evidence their sensitivity to a acognitive interpersonal
    context, conceived as a common ground. Such a cognitive state - shared
    by co-participants through the coordinative process of grounding -
    interacts with the global dialogue structure, which is cognitively
    shaped by ``meta-negotiating{''} and grounding the dialogue topic.
    Locally, the relation between the current dialogue structural units and
    the global dialogue topic is said to be specified by information
    structure, in particular intra-utterance themes.
    It is argued that contrastive markers re-orient the co-participants'
    cognitive states towards grounding ungrounded topical aspects to be
    meta-negotiated. They offer a collaborative context-updating strategy,
    tracking the status of common ground during dialogue topic management.
  • Chen, A. (2007). Language-specificity in the perception of continuation intonation. In C. Gussenhoven, & T. Riad (Eds.), Tones and tunes II: Phonetic and behavioural studies in word and sentence prosody (pp. 107-142). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

    Abstract

    This paper addressed the question of how British English, German and Dutch listeners differ in their perception of continuation intonation both at the phonological level (Experiment 1) and at the level of phonetic implementation (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, preference scores of pitch contours to signal continuation at the clause-boundary were obtained from these listener groups. It was found that among contours with H%, British English listeners had a strong preference for H*L H%, as predicted. Unexpectedly, British English listeners rated H* H% noticeably more favourably than L*H H%; Dutch listeners largely rated H* H% more favourably than H*L H% and L*H H%; German listeners rated these contours similarly and seemed to have a slight preference for H*L H%. In Experiment 2, the degree to which a final rise was perceived to express continuation was established for each listener group in a made-up language. It was found that although all listener groups associated a higher end pitch with a higher degree of continuation likelihood, the perceived meaning difference for a given interval of end pitch heights varied with the contour shape of the utterance final syllable. When it was comparable to H* H%, British English and Dutch listeners perceived a larger meaning difference than German listeners; when it was comparable to H*L H%, British English listeners perceived a larger difference than German and Dutch listeners. This shows that language-specificity in continuation intonation at the phonological level affects the perception of continuation intonation at the phonetic level.
  • Clifton, C. J., Meyer, A. S., Wurm, L. H., & Treiman, R. (2013). Language comprehension and production. In A. F. Healy, & R. W. Proctor (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology, Volume 4, Experimental Psychology. 2nd Edition (pp. 523-547). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

    Abstract

    In this chapter, we survey the processes of recognizing and producing words and of understanding and creating sentences. Theory and research on these topics have been shaped by debates about how various sources of information are integrated in these processes, and about the role of language structure, as analyzed in the discipline of linguistics. In this chapter, we describe current views of fluent language users' comprehension of spoken and written language and their production of spoken language. We review what we consider to be the most important findings and theories in psycholinguistics, returning again and again to the questions of modularity and the importance of linguistic knowledge. Although we acknowledge the importance of social factors in language use, our focus is on core processes such as parsing and word retrieval that are not necessarily affected by such factors. We do not have space to say much about the important fields of developmental psycholinguistics, which deals with the acquisition of language by children, or applied psycholinguistics, which encompasses such topics as language disorders and language teaching. Although we recognize that there is burgeoning interest in the measurement of brain activity during language processing and how language is represented in the brain, space permits only occasional pointers to work in neuropsychology and the cognitive neuroscience of language. For treatment of these topics, and others, the interested reader could begin with two recent handbooks of psycholinguistics (Gaskell, 2007; Traxler & Gemsbacher, 2006) and a handbook of cognitive neuroscience (Gazzaniga, 2004).
  • Crago, M. B., & Allen, S. E. M. (1998). Acquiring Inuktitut. In O. L. Taylor, & L. Leonard (Eds.), Language Acquisition Across North America: Cross-Cultural And Cross-Linguistic Perspectives (pp. 245-279). San Diego, CA, USA: Singular Publishing Group, Inc.
  • Cutler, A. (2001). Entries on: Acquisition of language by non-human primates; bilingualism; compound (linguistic); development of language-specific phonology; gender (linguistic); grammar; infant speech perception; language; lexicon; morphology; motor theory of speech perception; perception of second languages; phoneme; phonological store; phonology; prosody; sign language; slips of the tongue; speech perception; speech production; stress (linguistic); syntax; word recognition; words. In P. Winn (Ed.), Dictionary of biological psychology. London: Routledge.
  • Cutler, A., Norris, D., & McQueen, J. M. (1996). Lexical access in continuous speech: Language-specific realisations of a universal model. In T. Otake, & A. Cutler (Eds.), Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies (pp. 227-242). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A., & Otake, T. (1996). Phonological structure and its role in language processing. In T. Otake, & A. Cutler (Eds.), Phonological structure and language processing: Cross-linguistic studies (pp. 1-12). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Cutler, A. (1998). Prosodic structure and word recognition. In A. D. Friederici (Ed.), Language comprehension: A biological perspective (pp. 41-70). Heidelberg: Springer.
  • Cutler, A. (1996). Prosody and the word boundary problem. In J. L. Morgan, & K. Demuth (Eds.), Signal to syntax: Bootstrapping from speech to grammar in early acquisition (pp. 87-99). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Cutler, A., McQueen, J. M., Norris, D., & Somejuan, A. (2001). The roll of the silly ball. In E. Dupoux (Ed.), Language, brain and cognitive development: Essays in honor of Jacques Mehler (pp. 181-194). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Dediu, D., Cysouw, M., Levinson, S. C., Baronchelli, A., Christiansen, M. H., Croft, W., Evans, N., Garrod, S., Gray, R., Kandler, A., & Lieven, E. (2013). Cultural evolution of language. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion. Strüngmann Forum Reports, vol. 12 (pp. 303-332). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter argues that an evolutionary cultural approach to language not only has already proven fruitful, but it probably holds the key to understand many puzzling aspects of language, its change and origins. The chapter begins by highlighting several still common misconceptions about language that might seem to call into question a cultural evolutionary approach. It explores the antiquity of language and sketches a general evolutionary approach discussing the aspects of function, fi tness, replication, and selection, as well the relevant units of linguistic evolution. In this context, the chapter looks at some fundamental aspects of linguistic diversity such as the nature of the design space, the mechanisms generating it, and the shape and fabric of language. Given that biology is another evolutionary system, its complex coevolution with language needs to be understood in order to have a proper theory of language. Throughout the chapter, various challenges are identifi ed and discussed, sketching promising directions for future research. The chapter ends by listing the necessary data, methods, and theoretical developments required for a grounded evolutionary approach to language.
  • Dediu, D. (2013). Genes: Interactions with language on three levels — Inter-individual variation, historical correlations and genetic biasing. In P.-M. Binder, & K. Smith (Eds.), The language phenomenon: Human communication from milliseconds to millennia (pp. 139-161). Berlin: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-36086-2_7.

    Abstract

    The complex inter-relationships between genetics and linguistics encompass all four scales highlighted by the contributions to this book and, together with cultural transmission, the genetics of language holds the promise to offer a unitary understanding of this fascinating phenomenon. There are inter-individual differences in genetic makeup which contribute to the obvious fact that we are not identical in the way we understand and use language and, by studying them, we will be able to both better treat and enhance ourselves. There are correlations between the genetic configuration of human groups and their languages, reflecting the historical processes shaping them, and there also seem to exist genes which can influence some characteristics of language, biasing it towards or against certain states by altering the way language is transmitted across generations. Besides the joys of pure knowledge, the understanding of these three aspects of genetics relevant to language will potentially trigger advances in medicine, linguistics, psychology or the understanding of our own past and, last but not least, a profound change in the way we regard one of the emblems of being human: our capacity for language.
  • Dimroth, C. (2007). Zweitspracherwerb bei Kindern und Jugendlichen: Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede. In T. Anstatt (Ed.), Mehrsprachigkeit bei Kindern und Erwachsenen: Erwerb, Formen, Förderung (pp. 115-137). Tübingen: Attempto.

    Abstract

    This paper discusses the influence of age-related factors like stage of cognitive development, prior linguistic knowledge, and motivation and addresses the specific effects of these ‘age factors’ on second language acquisition as opposed to other learning tasks. Based on longitudinal corpus data from child and adolescent learners of L2 German (L1 = Russian), the paper studies the acquisition of word order (verb raising over negation, verb second) and inflectional morphology (subject-verb-agreement, tense, noun plural, and adjective-noun agreement). Whereas the child learner shows target-like production in all of these areas within the observation period (1½ years), the adolescent learner masters only some of them. The discussion addresses the question of what it is about clusters of grammatical features that make them particularly affected by age.
  • Dingemanse, M. (2013). Wie wir mit Sprache malen - How to paint with language. Forschungsbericht 2013 - Max-Planck-Institut für Psycholinguistik. In Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Jahrbuch 2013. München: Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved from http://www.mpg.de/6683977/Psycholinguistik_JB_2013.

    Abstract

    Words evolve not as blobs of ink on paper but in face to face interaction. The nature of language as fundamentally interactive and multimodal is shown by the study of ideophones, vivid sensory words that thrive in conversations around the world. The ways in which these Lautbilder enable precise communication about sensory knowledge has for the first time been studied in detail. It turns out that we can paint with language, and that the onomatopoeia we sometimes classify as childish might be a subset of a much richer toolkit for depiction in speech, available to us all.
  • Dunn, M. (2007). Vernacular literacy in the Touo language of the Solomon Islands. In A. J. Liddicoat (Ed.), Language planning and policy: Issues in language planning and literacy (pp. 209-220). Clevedon: Multilingual matters.

    Abstract

    The Touo language is a non-Austronesian language spoken on Rendova Island (Western Province, Solomon Islands). First language speakers of Touo are typically multilingual, and are likely to speak other (Austronesian) vernaculars, as well as Solomon Island Pijin and English. There is no institutional support of literacy in Touo: schools function in English, and church-based support for vernacular literacy focuses on the major Austronesian languages of the local area. Touo vernacular literacy exists in a restricted niche of the linguistic ecology, where it is utilised for symbolic rather than communicative goals. Competing vernacular orthographic traditions complicate the situation further.
  • Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I., Senft, B., & Senft, G. (1998). Trobriander (Ost-Neuguinea, Trobriand Inseln, Kaile'una) Fadenspiele 'ninikula'. In Ethnologie - Humanethologische Begleitpublikationen von I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt und Mitarbeitern. Sammelband I, 1985-1987. Göttingen: Institut für den Wissenschaftlichen Film.
  • Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., & Meira, S. (2001). Recognitional deixis. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 78-81). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874641.

    Abstract

    “Recognitional” words and constructions enshrine our systematic reliance on shared knowledge in dedicated morphological forms and usage patterns. For example, English has a large range of terms for use when a speaker cannot locate the word or name for something or someone (e.g., whatsit, what’s-his-name), but thinks that the interlocutor knows, or can easily work out, what the speaker is talking about. This task aims to identify and investigate these kinds of expressions in the research language, including their grammaticalised status, meaning, distribution, and productivity. The task consists of a questionnaire with examples of relevant hypothetical scenarios that can be used in eliciting the relevant terms. The researcher is then encouraged to pursue further questions in regard to these items.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2001). Body. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 62-77). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874633.

    Abstract

    This task investigates the extensional meaning of body part terms, in particular the terms for the upper and lower limbs. Two questions are addressed, namely (i) are the boundaries of these body parts universal, guided by proposed universals of object recognition? (ii) How can we compare the extensional meanings of body part terms within and across different systems of nomenclature? Consultants receive booklets with line drawings of a body and are asked to colour in specific parts of the body.
  • Enfield, N. J., Levinson, S. C., De Ruiter, J. P., & Stivers, T. (2007). Building a corpus of multimodal interaction in your field site. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 96-99). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468728.

    Abstract

    Research on video- and audio-recordings of spontaneous naturally-occurring conversation in English has shown that conversation is a rule-guided, practice-oriented domain that can be investigated for its underlying mechanics or structure. Systematic study could yield something like a grammar for conversation. The goal of this task is to acquire a corpus of video-data, for investigating the underlying structure(s) of interaction cross-linguistically and cross-culturally.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Doing fieldwork on the body, language, and communication. In C. Müller, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (Eds.), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Volume 1 (pp. 974-981). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). A ‘Composite Utterances’ approach to meaning. In C. Müller, E. Fricke, S. Ladewig, A. Cienki, D. McNeill, & S. Teßendorf (Eds.), Handbook Body – Language – Communication. Volume 1 (pp. 689-706). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2007). Meanings of the unmarked: How 'default' person reference does more than just refer. In N. Enfield, & T. Stivers (Eds.), Person reference in interaction: Linguistic, cultural, and social perspectives (pp. 97-120). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J., Dingemanse, M., Baranova, J., Blythe, J., Brown, P., Dirksmeyer, T., Drew, P., Floyd, S., Gipper, S., Gisladottir, R. S., Hoymann, G., Kendrick, K. H., Levinson, S. C., Magyari, L., Manrique, E., Rossi, G., San Roque, L., & Torreira, F. (2013). Huh? What? – A first survey in 21 languages. In M. Hayashi, G. Raymond, & J. Sidnell (Eds.), Conversational repair and human understanding (pp. 343-380). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Abstract

    Introduction

    A comparison of conversation in twenty-one languages from around the world reveals commonalities and differences in the way that people do open-class other-initiation of repair (Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks, 1977; Drew, 1997). We find that speakers of all of the spoken languages in the sample make use of a primary interjection strategy (in English it is Huh?), where the phonetic form of the interjection is strikingly similar across the languages: a monosyllable featuring an open non-back vowel [a, æ, ə, ʌ], often nasalized, usually with rising intonation and sometimes an [h-] onset. We also find that most of the languages have another strategy for open-class other-initiation of repair, namely the use of a question word (usually “what”). Here we find significantly more variation across the languages. The phonetic form of the question word involved is completely different from language to language: e.g., English [wɑt] versus Cha'palaa [ti] versus Duna [aki]. Furthermore, the grammatical structure in which the repair-initiating question word can or must be expressed varies within and across languages. In this chapter we present data on these two strategies – primary interjections like Huh? and question words like What? – with discussion of possible reasons for the similarities and differences across the languages. We explore some implications for the notion of repair as a system, in the context of research on the typology of language use.

    The general outline of this chapter is as follows. We first discuss repair as a system across languages and then introduce the focus of the chapter: open-class other-initiation of repair. A discussion of the main findings follows, where we identify two alternative strategies in the data: an interjection strategy (Huh?) and a question word strategy (What?). Formal features and possible motivations are discussed for the interjection strategy and the question word strategy in order. A final section discusses bodily behavior including posture, eyebrow movements and eye gaze, both in spoken languages and in a sign language.
  • Enfield, N. J., & Bohnemeyer, J. (2001). Hidden colour-chips task: Demonstratives, attention, and interaction. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 21-28). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874636.

    Abstract

    Demonstratives are typically described as encoding degrees of physical distance between the object referred to, and the speaker or addressee. For example, this in English is used to talk about things that are physically near the speaker, and that for things that are not. But is this how speakers really choose between these words in actual talk? This task aims to generate spontaneous language data concerning deixis, gesture, and demonstratives, and to investigate the significance of different factors (e.g., physical distance, attention) in demonstrative selection. In the presence of one consultant (the “memoriser”), sixteen colour chips are hidden under objects in a specified array. Another consultant enters the area and asks the memoriser to recount the locations of the chips. The task is designed to create a situation where the speaker genuinely attempts to manipulate the addressee’s attention on objects in the immediate physical space.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Hippie, interrupted. In J. Barker, & J. Lindquist (Eds.), Figures of Southeast Asian modernity (pp. 101-103). Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2001). Linguistic evidence for a Lao perspective on facial expression of emotion. In J. Harkins, & A. Wierzbicka (Eds.), Emotions in crosslinguistic perspective (pp. 149-166). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2001). On genetic and areal linguistics in Mainland South-East Asia: Parallel polyfunctionality of ‘acquire’. In A. Y. Aikhenvald, & R. M. Dixon (Eds.), Areal diffusion and genetic inheritance: Problems in comparative linguistics (pp. 255-290). Oxford University Press.
  • Enfield, N. J. (2013). Reference in conversation. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 433-454). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118325001.ch21.

    Abstract

    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Lexical Selection in Reference: Introductory Examples of Reference to Times Multiple “Preferences” Future Directions Conclusion
  • Enfield, N. J. (2007). Repair sequences in interaction. In A. Majid (Ed.), Field Manual Volume 10 (pp. 100-103). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.468724.

    Abstract

    This sub-project is concerned with analysis and cross-linguistic comparison of the mechanisms of signaling and redressing ‘trouble’ during conversation. Speakers and listeners constantly face difficulties with many different aspects of speech production and comprehension during conversation. A speaker may mispronounce a word, or may be unable to find a word, or be unable to formulate in words an idea he or she has in mind. A listener may have troubling hearing (part of) what was said, may not know who a speaker is referring to, may not be sure of the current relevance of what is being said. There may be problems in the organisation of turns at talk, for instance, two speakers’ speech may be in overlap. The goal of this task is to investigate the range of practices that a language uses to address problems of speaking, hearing and understanding in conversation.
  • Enfield, N. J., & Dunn, M. (2001). Supplements to the Wilkins 1999 demonstrative questionnaire. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 82-84). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874638.
  • Ernestus, M., & Baayen, R. H. (2007). Intraparadigmatic effects on the perception of voice. In J. van de Weijer, & E. J. van der Torre (Eds.), Voicing in Dutch: (De)voicing-phonology, phonetics, and psycholinguistics (pp. 153-173). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

    Abstract

    In Dutch, all morpheme-final obstruents are voiceless in word-final position. As a consequence, the distinction between obstruents that are voiced before vowel-initial suffixes and those that are always voiceless is neutralized. This study adds to the existing evidence that the neutralization is incomplete: neutralized, alternating plosives tend to have shorter bursts than non-alternating plosives. Furthermore, in a rating study, listeners scored the alternating plosives as more voiced than the nonalternating plosives, showing sensitivity to the subtle subphonemic cues in the acoustic signal. Importantly, the participants who were presented with the complete words, instead of just the final rhymes, scored the alternating plosives as even more voiced. This shows that listeners’ perception of voice is affected by their knowledge of the obstruent’s realization in the word’s morphological paradigm. Apparently, subphonemic paradigmatic levelling is a characteristic of both production and perception. We explain the effects within an analogy-based approach.
  • Fernald, A., McRoberts, G. W., & Swingley, D. (2001). Infants' developing competence in recognizing and understanding words in fluent speech. In J. Weissenborn, & B. Höhle (Eds.), Approaches to Bootstrapping: Phonological, lexical, syntactic and neurophysiological aspects of early language acquisition. Volume 1 (pp. 97-123). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
  • Fisher, S. E. (2013). Building bridges between genes, brains and language. In J. J. Bolhuis, & M. Everaert (Eds.), Birdsong, speech and language: Exploring the evolution of mind and brain (pp. 425-454). Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
  • Fisher, S. E., & Smith, S. (2001). Progress towards the identification of genes influencing developmental dyslexia. In A. Fawcett (Ed.), Dyslexia: Theory and good practice (pp. 39-64). London: Whurr.
  • Floyd, S. (2013). Semantic transparency and cultural calquing in the Northwest Amazon. In P. Epps, & K. Stenzel (Eds.), Upper Rio Negro: Cultural and linguistic interaction in northwestern Amazonia (pp. 271-308). Rio de Janiero: Museu do Indio. Retrieved from http://www.museunacional.ufrj.br/ppgas/livros_ele.html.

    Abstract

    The ethnographic literature has sometimes described parts of the northwest Amazon as areas of shared culture across linguistic groups. This paper illustrates how a principle of semantic transparency across languages is a key means of establishing elements of a common regional culture through practices like the calquing of ethnonyms and toponyms so that they are semantically, but not phonologically, equivalent across languages. It places the upper Rio Negro area of the northwest Amazon in a general discussion of cross-linguistic naming practices in South America and considers the extent to which a preference for semantic transparency can be linked to cases of widespread cultural ‘calquing’, in which culturally-important meanings are kept similar across different linguistic systems. It also addresses the principle of semantic transparency beyond specific referential phrases and into larger discourse structures. It concludes that an attention to semiotic practices in multilingual settings can provide new and more complex ways of thinking about the idea of shared culture.
  • Frank, S. L., Koppen, M., Noordman, L. G. M., & Vonk, W. (2007). Modeling multiple levels of text presentation. In F. Schmalhofer, & C. A. Perfetti (Eds.), Higher level language processes in the brain: Inference and comprehension processes (pp. 133-157). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
  • Furuyama, N., & Sekine, K. (2007). Forgetful or strategic? The mystery of the systematic avoidance of reference in the cartoon story nsarrative. In S. D. Duncan, J. Cassel, & E. T. Levy (Eds.), Gesture and the Dynamic Dimension of Language: Essays in honor of David McNeill (pp. 75-81). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
  • Gullberg, M., & Holmqvist, K. (2001). Eye tracking and the perception of gestures in face-to-face interaction vs on screen. In C. Cavé, I. Guaïtella, & S. Santi (Eds.), Oralité et gestualité (2001) (pp. 381-384). Paris, France: Editions Harmattan.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction to part I. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 21-36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction to part III. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 225-231). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Gumperz, J. J., & Levinson, S. C. (1996). Introduction: Linguistic relativity re-examined. In J. J. Gumperz, & S. C. Levinson (Eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity (pp. 1-20). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Hagoort, P. (2007). The memory, unification, and control (MUC) model of language. In T. Sakamoto (Ed.), Communicating skills of intention (pp. 259-291). Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.
  • Hagoort, P. (2007). The memory, unification, and control (MUC) model of language. In A. S. Meyer, L. Wheeldon, & A. Krott (Eds.), Automaticity and control in language processing (pp. 243-270). Hove: Psychology Press.
  • Hagoort, P., & Ramsey, N. (2001). De gereedschapskist van de cognitieve neurowetenschap. In F. Wijnen, & F. Verstraten (Eds.), Het brein te kijk (pp. 39-67). Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger.
  • Hagoort, P. (2001). De verbeelding aan de macht: Hoe het menselijk taalvermogen zichtbaar wordt in de (beeld) analyse van hersenactiviteit. In J. Joosse (Ed.), Biologie en psychologie: Naar vruchtbare kruisbestuivingen (pp. 41-60). Amsterdam: Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen.
  • Hagoort, P. (1998). The shadows of lexical meaning in patients with semantic impairments. In B. Stemmer, & H. Whitaker (Eds.), Handbook of neurolinguistics (pp. 235-248). New York: Academic Press.
  • Hagoort, P., & Poeppel, D. (2013). The infrastructure of the language-ready brain. In M. A. Arbib (Ed.), Language, music, and the brain: A mysterious relationship (pp. 233-255). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter sketches in very general terms the cognitive architecture of both language comprehension and production, as well as the neurobiological infrastructure that makes the human brain ready for language. Focus is on spoken language, since that compares most directly to processing music. It is worth bearing in mind that humans can also interface with language as a cognitive system using sign and text (visual) as well as Braille (tactile); that is to say, the system can connect with input/output processes in any sensory modality. Language processing consists of a complex and nested set of subroutines to get from sound to meaning (in comprehension) or meaning to sound (in production), with remarkable speed and accuracy. The fi rst section outlines a selection of the major constituent operations, from fractionating the input into manageable units to combining and unifying information in the construction of meaning. The next section addresses the neurobiological infrastructure hypothesized to form the basis for language processing. Principal insights are summarized by building on the notion of “brain networks” for speech–sound processing, syntactic processing, and the construction of meaning, bearing in mind that such a neat three-way subdivision overlooks important overlap and shared mechanisms in the neural architecture subserving language processing. Finally, in keeping with the spirit of the volume, some possible relations are highlighted between language and music that arise from the infrastructure developed here. Our characterization of language and its neurobiological foundations is necessarily selective and brief. Our aim is to identify for the reader critical questions that require an answer to have a plausible cognitive neuroscience of language processing.
  • Hammarström, H., & O'Connor, L. (2013). Dependency sensitive typological distance. In L. Borin, & A. Saxena (Eds.), Approaches to measuring linguistic differences (pp. 337-360). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Hammarström, H. (2013). Noun class parallels in Kordofanian and Niger-Congo: Evidence of genealogical inheritance? In T. C. Schadeberg, & R. M. Blench (Eds.), Nuba Mountain Language Studies (pp. 549-570). Köln: Köppe.
  • Haun, D. B. M., & Over, H. (2013). Like me: A homophily-based account of human culture. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural Evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion (pp. 75-85). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Hayano, K. (2013). Question design in conversation. In J. Sidnell, & T. Stivers (Eds.), The handbook of conversation analysis (pp. 395-414). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. doi:10.1002/9781118325001.ch19.

    Abstract

    This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Questions Questioning and the Epistemic Gradient Presuppositions, Agenda Setting and Preferences Social Actions Implemented by Questions Questions as Building Blocks of Institutional Activities Future Directions
  • Hellwig, F. M., & Lüpke, F. (2001). Caused positions. In S. C. Levinson, & N. J. Enfield (Eds.), Manual for the field season 2001 (pp. 126-128). Nijmegen: Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. doi:10.17617/2.874644.

    Abstract

    What kinds of resources to languages have for describing location and position? For some languages, verbs have an important role to play in describing different kinds of situations (e.g., whether a bottle is standing or lying on the table). This task is designed to examine the use of positional verbs in locative constructions, with respect to the presence or absence of a human “positioner”. Participants are asked to describe video clips showing locative states that occur spontaneously, or because of active interference from a person. The task follows on from two earlier tools for the elicitation of static locative descriptions (BowPed and the Ameka picture book task). A number of additional variables (e.g. canonical v. non-canonical orientation of the figure) are also targeted in the stimuli set.

    Additional information

    2001_Caused_positions.zip
  • Hofmeister, P., & Norcliffe, E. (2013). Does resumption facilitate sentence comprehension? In P. Hofmeister, & E. Norcliffe (Eds.), The core and the periphery: Data-driven perspectives on syntax inspired by Ivan A. Sag (pp. 225-246). Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.
  • Huettig, F. (2013). Young children’s use of color information during language-vision mapping. In B. R. Kar (Ed.), Cognition and brain development: Converging evidence from various methodologies (pp. 368-391). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association Press.
  • Hunley, K., Dunn, M., Lindström, E., Reesink, G., Terrill, A., Norton, H., Scheinfeldt, L., Friedlaender, F. R., Merriwether, D. A., Koki, G., & Friedlaender, J. S. (2007). Inferring prehistory from genetic, linguistic, and geographic variation. In J. S. Friedlaender (Ed.), Genes, language, & culture history in the Southwest Pacific (pp. 141-154). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    This chapter investigates the fit of genetic, phenotypic, and linguistic data to two well-known models of population history. The first of these models, termed the population fissions model, emphasizes population splitting, isolation, and independent evolution. It predicts that genetic and linguistic data will be perfectly tree-like. The second model, termed isolation by distance, emphasizes genetic exchange among geographically proximate populations. It predicts a monotonic decline in genetic similarity with increasing geographic distance. While these models are overly simplistic, deviations from them were expected to provide important insights into the population history of northern Island Melanesia. The chapter finds scant support for either model because the prehistory of the region has been so complex. Nonetheless, the genetic and linguistic data are consistent with an early radiation of proto-Papuan speakers into the region followed by a much later migration of Austronesian speaking peoples. While these groups subsequently experienced substantial genetic and cultural exchange, this exchange has been insufficient to erase this history of separate migrations.
  • Indefrey, P. (2007). Brain imaging studies of language production. In G. Gaskell (Ed.), Oxford handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 547-564). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Abstract

    Neurocognitive studies of language production have provided sufficient evidence on both the spatial and the temporal patterns of brain activation to allow tentative and in some cases not so tentative conclusions about function-structure relationships. This chapter reports meta-analysis results that identify reliable activation areas for a range of word, sentence, and narrative production tasks both in the native language and a second language. Based on a theoretically motivated analysis of language production tasks it is possible to specify relationships between brain areas and functional processing components of language production that could not have been derived from the data provided by any single task.
  • Jordan, F. M., van Schaik, C. P., Francois, P., Gintis, H., Haun, D. B. M., Hruschka, D. H., Janssen, M. A., Kitts, J. A., Lehmann, L., Mathew, S., Richerson, P. J., Turchin, P., & Wiessner, P. (2013). Cultural evolution of the structure of human groups. In P. J. Richerson, & M. H. Christiansen (Eds.), Cultural Evolution: Society, technology, language, and religion (pp. 87-116). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Jordan, F. (2013). Comparative phylogenetic methods and the study of pattern and process in kinship. In P. McConvell, I. Keen, & R. Hendery (Eds.), Kinship systems: Change and reconstruction (pp. 43-58). Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press.

    Abstract

    Anthropology began by comparing aspects of kinship across cultures, while linguists interested in semantic domains such as kinship necessarily compare across languages. In this chapter I show how phylogenetic comparative methods from evolutionary biology can be used to study evolutionary processes relating to kinship and kinship terminologies across language and culture.
  • Jordens, P. (1998). Defaultformen des Präteritums. Zum Erwerb der Vergangenheitsmorphologie im Niederlänidischen. In H. Wegener (Ed.), Eine zweite Sprache lernen (pp. 61-88). Tübingen, Germany: Verlag Gunter Narr.
  • Jordens, P. (2013). Dummies and auxiliaries in the acquisition of L1 and L2 Dutch. In E. Blom, I. Van de Craats, & J. Verhagen (Eds.), Dummy Auxiliaries in First and Second Language Acquisition (pp. 341-368). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Kallmeyer, L., Osswald, R., & Van Valin Jr., R. D. (2013). Tree wrapping for Role and Reference Grammar. In G. Morrill, & M.-J. Nederhof (Eds.), Formal grammar: 17th and 18th International Conferences, FG 2012/2013, Opole, Poland, August 2012: revised Selected Papers, Düsseldorf, Germany, August 2013: proceedings (pp. 175-190). Heidelberg: Springer.
  • Kempen, G. (1996). Computational models of syntactic processing in human language comprehension. In T. Dijkstra, & K. De Smedt (Eds.), Computational psycholinguistics: Symbolic and subsymbolic models of language processing (pp. 192-220). London: Taylor & Francis.

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